


The 77th Roisa Exposition

by only_freakin_donuts



Category: Jane the Virgin (TV)
Genre: F/F, Suicide Attempt, all inspired by 4x13, my muse came back from war, so far it's mostly just about Luisa honestly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-19
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-04 20:42:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14028345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/pseuds/only_freakin_donuts
Summary: Basically a drabble collection, all inspired by 4x13 (Chapter 77).





	1. The Princess Saves Herself In This One

**Author's Note:**

> I (clearly) have a lot of feelings, come talk to me about them on tumblr @only-freakin-sunflowers!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This drabble was very heavily inspired by Save Myself by Ed Sheeran....
> 
> "And before I save someone else, I've got to save myself  
> And before I blame someone else, I've got to save myself  
> And before I love someone else, I've got to love myself" ♡

“You’re just like your mother.”  
“You’re beautiful, just like your mother.”  
“You’re crazy, just like your mother.”

It all adds up pretty fast; one minute, she was her mother’s good qualities, her grace and her beauty, and in the next, she was her worst– her illness. Most people didn’t see it as that, though, an illness. They just saw it as her. And sometimes, it was her.

And sometimes, it was Luisa too. 

Wasn’t it supposed to be a good thing when a daughter followed in her mother’s footsteps? When she hears her mom’s voice in her ear guiding her and beckoning her? Wouldn’t that make any mom proud?

Not this time. Luisa could justify what she was about to do to anyone if she had to; anyone but her mom, that was. Because even though she would understand better than anyone in this world, she would be so, wholeheartedly against it. So vehemently against her daughter following in these footsteps of hers, still stamped in the sand over thirty years later. 

But she still could justify it. She was saving herself– from a future that would just hurt her heart far too much. From a future, just like her past, all about helping others when she couldn’t even help herself. Putting others first, loving them, living her whole life for them– she couldn’t do that forever. So it was better she just stopped now. It was better she just put the final nail in the coffin, seal her legacy as Mia Alver’s daughter, who was just like her. Beautiful. And crazy. And found floating face down in Biscayne Bay, gone too soon, a victim of her illness. 

I’m doing this to save myself, Mom. 

-

I’m doing this to save myself, Mom. 

She didn’t feel the need to justify any of this to anyone. If anyone could see this place, and see her, they’d understand, she knew they would. And her mom more than anyone would understand the magic that was to be found here. It was more than just a place, it was a state of mind. The best one she’d been in years, one she could only hope her mom had found too, before she really did leave this life.

She smiles a true, real smile, walking the path to her cabin, running her fingers along the plants lining her way. It was a comfortable temperature out, early morning warm with a light, refreshing breeze coming off the coast. The air smelt like magnolias and sea salt, and the only sounds around her were nature waking up for the day. It was peaceful, it was releasing a breath she didn’t know she had been holding for most of her life.

This was the chapter of her mom’s story that nobody knew. The calm, the good, the serene. The part of her that had to abandon seemingly everything in order to commit to herself and herself alone. It wasn’t an action derived from selfishness, or cowardice, lack of strength or lack of perseverance. And this was the chapter of her story she hoped people could know, understand, and respect.

She had an illness, just like her mother.  
But more importantly, she was fighting it, and she was winning.

She was beautiful, just like her mother.  
But more importantly, she was strong and self-sufficient like her. 

She was just like her mother, and that wasn’t a bad thing. Mia Alver was more than the world ever knew. And so was her daughter.


	2. Love Is Looking For You Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So when you hear my voice,  
> and when you say my name,  
> may it never give you pain."
> 
> Luisa had put all her broken pieces back in place over the years with very, very little help from others, and none at all from Rose. She was sure of the beautiful, mosaic tiled butterfly wings she’d created for herself, and proud of them too. But right now, here in this embrace, she felt all of those pieces spread across her wings finally settle into their proper place. She’d fixed her broken heart, and she didn’t want it broken again. But she did want Rose back in her life. Her life was better with her love in it, in whatever form that happened to come in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "So how do I say that in a much less cheesy way? Rose is an emotional vegan, no cheese, no meat.... whatever..."

The Havana airport is a stale excuse for an airport, truly. Rose had never been. The flight from Miami to the Cayman Islands was short, it usually didn’t have a stopover. 

She has two hours, so she chooses to sit in a cafe and buy lunch with only mild complaining; hopefully the scones aren’t as stale as the air. She sits at a wobbly table, ready to people watch, and puts on her glasses; not every part of her had aged so gracefully, leastly her eyesight. 

And that’s when she spots her, a face in the crowd that she would recognize anywhere. She heard her laugh and she had no doubts, as if she’d had any before anyways. It was her, the love of her life, whom had abruptly dropped all contact, cut and run, ten years ago. In the beginning, for the first few years in fact, Rose thought about her every day. She was constantly wondering what she was doing, where she was… if she was sober, if she was sick, if she was hurting– after all, there wasn’t much else to do in prison. Eventually her ravenous imagination had no choice but to step in and create a story; the story of Luisa Alver and her roaring 40s. 

She was living in Jupiter Beach, alone in a one bedroom condo overlooking the Indian River, with plants to keep her company; low maintenance ones, of course. She did yoga and she cooked and she was a receptionist somewhere; Rose didn’t know where, could’ve been anywhere from a medical practice to a hair salon, it didn’t matter, she got see people and greet them with a magic smile and she was content with that. She aged gracefully and naturally, and for her 50th she did something crazy, like skydiving or ziplining. Maybe she was trying to write a book. Rose couldn’t tell you much, honestly, Luisa was always unpredictable. She could just tell you that she was happy and healthy and she wasn’t hurt. She had to tell herself that. 

From the looks of it, it would appear she had been on the right track at least. Luisa had always said one day she would be more blonde than brunette, and Rose had never had any doubts about it. She looked beautiful as a blonde; again, Rose had no doubts she would. She was beautiful. And Rose realized just how much she’d missed her these past ten years, all with one fleeting glance. 

And when you stare, or rather longingly gaze, at someone for an extended period of time, especially someone intuitive as Luisa is, they take notice. She does a double take, as if to see she really recognizes the face she sees. Here, of all places, after all these years? Rose can’t believe it either. 

Luisa slowly makes her way over, a confused and unsure, but nonetheless mystified and seemingly happy, smile spreads across her lips. She’s got different lines in her cheeks and around her smile now, Rose can’t help but be happy because of it. The wrinkles were from smiling; Luisa’s been smiling these past years.  
“Hi,” Luisa starts simply, taken aback but confident nonetheless.  
“Hi,” Rose answers back. She can hear the goofy, shameless smile in her own voice. “Fancy meeting you here.”  
“Of all places,” Luisa answers, clearly amused.  
“Sit?” Rose asks, hoping she will. “Do you have somewhere you have to be?”  
“No,” Luisa answers, sitting in the wobbly plastic chair across from her old flame. “I’m here visiting family, I have cousins here that I never knew about, my mom’s nieces and nephews. They invited me to come stay with them for a bit. What are you doing here, I thought...”  
“Well, don’t tell,” Rose smirks, “but I’m on my way to the Caymans. Laying low for a while.”  
Luisa nods. She seems unimpressed, but not surprised. “You’re still running,” she nods. 

Rose doesn’t know how to respond. This is her life, she can’t apologize for it anymore. But it’s what Luisa had run from, years ago, this is what she didn’t want. They could so quickly revert right back to the way things were ten years ago, as if they had a time machine. Nothing would be changed, nothing would be different. Rose was still the same person she had always been, she still had her baggage. So where did they go from here?

“Can we not talk about me, right now?” Rose asks. “If you’d be okay with it, I just want to catch up. I just want to know how you’ve been. If that’s okay.”  
“It is okay,” Luisa agrees, before taking a deep breath and settling into her story; a gesture Rose remembered so well. “I’ve been really well. I’m the healthiest I’ve been in… ever, really. That’s really all there is to say– I’ve really just found my groove in life, you know? It all feels good. It gets lonely sometimes, but I see Raf and the kids and I have a good relationship with them. I have friends. I go to AA.” She shrugs lightly and a hint of a bashful smile moves across her lips.  
“I’m really happy for you,” Rose tells her, as genuine as she knows how to. She is genuinely happy. “That sounds lovely. All I ever wanted for you was to be happy and healthy, Luisa, I hope you know that.”  
“Even if it was away from you?” Luisa asks, quietly and tentatively.  
“Of course,” Rose answers, without any hesitation. “I love you. And if I’ve learned anything these past years, being on my own and having a lot of time to think, it’s that you are better off without me. And since I love you and I want what’s best for you, I can accept that. I’m okay if you’re okay, wherever you are.”

Luisa smiles; that big, melting smile that Rose loves and has missed. “That’s really nice of you,” she admits, looking down, still with that smile on her face. “I really miss you,” she admits. “I miss that you care, because I know you do… I just, miss you, yeah.”  
“We don’t have to go another ten years without any contact,” Rose reminds her with a gentle smile.  
“I thought you were laying low for a while?” Luisa asks, her brow furrowing.  
“I’d make an exception for you, I always would,” Rose answer hastily. She returns back to being serious for just a little while longer though, looking Luisa in the eyes. “I want to start over,” she admits. “I want to forget that we ever hurt each other, or more so that I hurt you… because I’m sorry, and I love you.”  
And again, Luisa smiles. Just softly this time, casting a blush tone over the bridge of her nose and blanketing her cheeks. “Yeah, I love you too,” she admits. “I’m not ready to risk being hurt again, though. I just… I can’t do this again, you know, and I can't just forget. But I don’t want to let you go again.” She knows she doesn’t make sense, she knows she’s being messy. But that’s what life with Rose in it was, it was messy.  
Rose understood better than anyone, because it went both ways. Luisa made her a life a mess too and it was quite frankly easier when she wasn’t around. But it was much less rewarding and much less enjoyable too. 

Luisa jots something down on a napkin and slides it across the table with two, lavender painted nails. “This is my number,” she tells Rose. “Call me sometime, we’ll start there?”  
Rose nods, grateful for the opportunity. “Yes, of course. Thank you, Lu. You didn’t have to come over here, you didn’t have to say hi, you could’ve walked away. It’s clear you have something really good going in your life right now, you don’t need me back in it…”  
Luisa reaches her hand across the table, laying it gently over Rose’s paler, colder one. “We met here for a reason,” she nods, truly believing what she’s saying. She smiles, standing up from the table and opening her arms for a hug. It felt out of place, they were never very fond of hugs, much less in public– but right now it felt right. It felt good to hold onto the person lost and then found again, let go and then reclaimed. 

Luisa had put all her broken pieces back in place over the years with very, very little help from others, and none at all from Rose. She was sure of the beautiful, mosaic tiled butterfly wings she’d created for herself, and proud of them too. But right now, here in this embrace, she felt all of those pieces spread across her wings finally settle into their proper place. She’d fixed her broken heart, and she didn’t want it broken again. But she did want Rose back in her life. Her life was better with her love in it, in whatever form that happened to come in. 

And Rose? She was just grateful for a chance to add another chapter to the greatest love story ever told. She’d always known it was from finished.


	3. We're Bound To Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I won't give up, if you don't give up"  
> "I won't give up, if you don't give up"  
> "I won't give up, if you don't give up." 
> 
> Her strong-willed, lioness lover… was broken. She was hurting so badly while she was all put together that she thought it would hurt less to break than to stay the way she was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pleaseee note: This is a sensitive chapter. Luisa jumped off the bridge and lived. It isn't pretty, it can bring up some emotions if you've ever been in this position or been in the position that Rose is in, having someone you care about in this position. Please take care of yourself :) If you or someone you love is contemplating suicide, please reach out. 
> 
> National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255 ♡

“Where is she?” Rose asks, pushing through the waiting room towards her very anxious-looking stepson.  
He looks at her with a worried but also confused, brow-furrowed expression. “They won’t tell us much,” he admits, taking a deep breath. He reaches a hand out to her, intertwining his fingers with hers in comfort. They needed to band together as a family right now. The life of one of their own was on the line.  
“Do you know where my dad is?” Rafael asks. “He should be here, he would want to be here–”  
Rose shakes her head, troubled. “I can’t get a hold of him,” she tells him, her voice shaking. “I don’t know if he knows…” She regains her composure quickly, her voice catching in her throat. She wasn’t supposed to be the most concerned person in the room. She was only the stepmother. “H-how are you?”  
“I’m… not great,” Rafael admits, as if it isn’t obvious. “My sister tried to kill herself, Rose. She…” He shakes his head.

It’s been a hard pill to swallow for Rose too. She’d always heard there were warning signs, when a person… wanted to do that. Luisa hadn’t seemed like she was suffering; she watched Luisa slump through a valley in her mental health before, and it had not looked like this. It was much more noise, much more crashing and thrashing, and drinking. It was loud, it was hard to ignore the loud wrecking ball careening through her life, through all their lives. But this was different. Everything had been fine, until it wasn’t. There was no wrecking ball, there was no crashing, there was no thrashing… there was just a phone call from Mercy Hospital at 10pm, saying Luisa had been admitted to the emergency room following a suicide attempt; jumping from an 80 foot causeway bridge into the bay below.

She’d survived the jump her mother didn’t. Barely.

And she’d left her family here with their hearts in their throats (or, Rafael and Rose at least, Emilio was nowhere to be found, not that that came as a huge shock) while she was in surgery meant to save her life. Rose hadn’t known just how hurt you could get jumping off a bridge– Luisa was the medical expert, not her. She was a lot of things, but particularly medically educated was not one of them. Patient was another.  
“Why has no one come to update us yet? She’s been in surgery for hours,” Rose grumbles.  
Rafael smiles just a little. “It’s been 45 minutes, Rose,” he points out gently. “It could be anything,” he mumbles, stopping quickly. He doesn’t want to go there. “Surgery takes a long time too. If you don’t want to stay, it’s okay, I’ll call you when she’s out. Petra’s coming, and my dad should be coming soon too…”  
“No, of course I’m staying, don’t be ridiculous,” Rose refutes, setting into the hard, waiting room chair.

It feels like many more hours before a doctor comes to tell them anything. By that time, Petra was there but Emilio still wasn’t, and Rafael had fallen asleep. His wife jerked him awake when she saw the doctor approaching. He’s not very tall and he looks concerned, and he captures everyone’s attention. “It shouldn’t be too much longer in there,” he starts. “It’s been touch and go; Luisa has what we call flail chest, meaning that a section of her ribcage broke and completely detached from the rest of her chest. This caused the bone fragments to puncture her right lung. We’ve fixed the hole and inserted a chest tube, and we are working on putting the ribcage back together. We are very fortunate her heart was not punctured in any capacity, and we’re very fortunate that the damage was not worse than it is. However, Luisa comes out of surgery she will be on a ventilator, meaning that she will have been placed in a medically induced coma– which sounds a lot worse than it is, I promise, it’s just so that she doesn’t fight the ventilator and try to breath over the intubation, and it is very temporary.”

No one’s sure whether to feel relieved that they have answers or rather scared of what’s to come. To Rose, it all sounds very scary– punctured lung, ventilator, medically induced coma, it all sounded so bad. She shakes her head, drawing attention to herself. Raf, wide awake now, slides a hand onto her back in comfort.  
“She’ll make a full recovery?” Rafael asks the doctor.  
The doctor nods. “It won’t be an easy recovery, but she should be just fine in time.”  
“After she’s out of the ICU, will she transferred up to psych?” Rafael asks, his tone unusually cold and business-like, setting Rose off.  
“Rafael,” she clips, cutting him off abruptly. “Now isn’t the time.”  
“Rose, with all due respect,” Rafael starts, taking a breath to reel himself in, “This is not your concern. She’s my sister, and I am recognizing that this pattern of destructive and dangerous behaviour needs to be stopped, by inpatient care.”  
Rose took a deep breath, not allowing herself to get this worked up over her stepdaughter. Petra stepped in, her arm wrapped over her husband’s broad shoulders. While she’s talking to him in her low, calming manner, the doctor looks to Rose. “Would you like to see her?” he asks.  
Rose jumps at the opportunity; some rare, precious alone time with Luisa would be much appreciated right now. She just wanted to see her, to know she was going to okay, to know that she was still alive. She was still here. Rose had come far too close to losing her today, but she hadn’t. Luisa was still here. She was still here.

She hadn’t realized she was gasping until she heard herself, felt her chest tightening involuntarily. Luisa looked so… broken. Her strong-willed, lioness lover… was broken. She was hurting so badly while she was all put together that she thought it would hurt less to break than to stay the way she was. She never intended to land here, in a coma, on a ventilator, Rose could guess that much… but knowing Luisa, she’d done her thinking, she’d weighed her options before stepping foot off that bridge, and she’d weighed this to be the better option. And that really hurt, it hurt Rose to know that Luisa had been hurting that badly and she hadn’t even noticed. She hadn’t even batted an eye, married to her father, living her life as trophy wife, having a fling on the side…

“You can talk to her,” the doctor encourages. “I can’t promise she can hear you, but it’s as if she’s just sleeping. It may bring you comfort.”  
Rose nods politely, willing him to leave. And sure enough, he gracefully steps out of the room, closing the door behind him, finally letting them have the alone time Rose desperately wanted.

The first thing she does is press a kiss to her cheek, holding it just a little longer than she normally would. If she had limited time and she wasn’t sure Luisa could hear her, Rose wanted her to be able to feel that she was here. Next, she takes her hand. And then she can settle in and hope to find her words.  
“Jesus Luisa,” she says under her breath. She wants to say a lot of things– you scared me, what were you thinking, look what you did, why would do you this? And instead, something resembling “I’m so glad you’re okay” comes out instead.  
“You know you made think a whole lot in the past couple hours, waiting while the doctors put your ribcage back together?” Rose asks. She glosses her fingers over Luisa’s torso, not daring at apply any pressure at all. “About… us. About losing you. Luisa, I can’t lose you. I know sometimes I take you for granted– I won’t, anymore. I can’t; look where we are.” She pauses, taking a deep breath and regained her flawless composure. “When you wake up,” she starts, “We can tell your father, if that’s what you want to do. We can do things your way. I don’t want to hide anymore, I don’t want to lose anymore time. I want to be with you, Luisa, I don’t want to be with him anymore. It isn’t worth it. I love you.” Her voice shakes. She didn’t realize that she had fear inside of her until it came out on a wavering note. “When you wake up, and you get better, physically and mentally, it’ll be me and you. And I will be there for you. I’m never not being there again. Okay?”  
She sees Rafael waiting outside, waiting for her to be done so he can come in. “Okay,” she nods, untangling her fingers from Luisa’s, out of sight from Rafael. “I’m sorry,” she whispers, before leaving. “I’m sorry it came to this.”


	4. Streetwise Hercules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "She is water,   
> powerful enough to drown you,  
> soft enough to cleanse you,  
> deep enough to save you." 
> 
> “I’m glad I didn’t do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last one! And it's SO FLUFFY. Thanks for reading everyone, I'll stop being so fixated on this one small piece of backstory we got now (wow we're so deprived lol).

Luisa pokes Rose’s calf with her toes, for no reason other than she could; and she wanted the skin to skin contact, her cold toes on Rose’s warm leg. Rose’s blue eyes, framed by black, thin reading glasses currently, dart over to her left, catching her wife’s mischievous smile. “Yes?” she asks. “Why is your cold foot on me?”   
“Because you’re warm,” Luisa smiles, wrapping the covers tighter around herself. “And I’m cold.”  
Rose presses the back of her hand against her love’s forehead, feeling for a fever the way she’s been taught to with their daughter. Their three year old got all the preschool bugs that went around, but this past week it had been Luisa bedbound, laid up with a winter’s end cold. “You have a fever,” she points out.   
“I feel fine,” Luisa contends. She works her way out of her cover cocoon and instead lays her head on her wife’s shoulder, slinging her arm over her and feeding off her warmth.   
Rose lifts her eyes from her love and back to her book, one hand turning her pages and one hand in Luisa’s hair.   
“You saved me, you know that?” Luisa mumbles, her eyes closed, her breath starting to even out in the early stages of slumber.  
Rose chuckles. “With my body heat? Glad I could come in handy.”  
“No, not just that,” she mumbles in response. “That night, that you called me. And I was on the bridge.” 

“What night?” Rose asks, her interest piqued. “What bridge, Lu?”   
“The causeway,” Luisa mumbles. “Years and years ago, when you were still with my dad. And Allison had cheated on me, and I inseminated Jane. And I was up on the causeway where my mom… and you called me and you told me you loved me, and you saved me.”   
Rose doesn’t know how to feel, much less how to answer. She was not aware of any of this, and now Luisa was telling her like it was nothing. She laughs uneasily, catching her words. “Luisa, wh– what do you mean, I saved you? Like… you were going to– you were going to jump, off the causeway, and you didn’t because I called you, at just the right moment?”  
Luisa nods, Rose feels the motion against her shoulder, but she isn’t letting her get off that easy. “Luisa,” she says sternly, sitting up. “Why didn’t you tell me about this?

Luisa sits up too, given that she’s no longer got a shoulder to rest on, looking like a sleepy toddler, her hair sticked up at odd angles and her bottom lip jutting out just slightly. She shrugs. “I don’t wanna think about it,” she says simply. “It didn’t happen, so…”   
“But it could’ve, we came so close…” Rose frets, cupping Luisa’s balmy, feverish cheek with her hand. “I-I… I’m just caught off guard, that’s all. This, all this, this life that we have… it wouldn’t have happened,” she stammers, looking around them. “It just wouldn’t… it wouldn’t have existed. I wouldn’t have turned my life around, we wouldn’t have our daughter… you would be dead! Y-you…”   
Luisa sighs gently, putting her hand on Rose’s, guiding it away from her face and intertwining their fingers. “At the time, it felt right… we never thought we were going to be together then, we even said it on the phone… And I thought I was alone. But I had you, and I still do, now. And I love our life, our family…” She leans back into her wife; she’s so cuddly when she’s under the weather. “I’m glad I didn’t do it.”   
“I’m unbelievably glad you didn’t do it,” Rose huffs, her heart rate maybe evening back out, hugging her wife a little tighter than she usually would’ve. She didn’t ever want to let her go. Knowing she’d come so close to losing her and that she’d never known. “Luisa?” she asks. “Tell me, okay? Tell me if something’s bothering you or... just tell me?”  
“You saved me once, I’ll let you do it again,” Luisa responds, her speech slowly slipping back into that slothed, sleepy sound. “I love you.”   
“I love you too,” Rose whispers, planting a soft kiss to her forehead. “Never doubt that.” 

Luisa smiles, finally drifting off to sleep. Those were the words that saved her that night, those were the words that would save her for the rest of her life. And these warm, freckled arms she got to fall asleep in weren’t so bad either.


End file.
